The Draft Slot NBA

The NBA might be the greatest “What if?” sports league on the planet. What if the Blazers had picked MJ over Bowie? What if David Stern didn’t veto the CP3 trade? What if the cap spike of 2016 was distributed over several seasons? What if Bill Walton’s feet hadn’t been made of glass? What if Shaq and Kobe had figured out how to coexist? What if OKC didn’t foolishly trade Harden? What if Tim Duncan had signed with Orlando?

These are just a few of the MANY examples, any one of which would have had massive downstream effects and changed league history in very fundamental ways. Today, I’m going to exercise my own NBA “What if?” freedom by concocting an even crazier scenario. The NBA expanded for the most recent (and final?) time in 2004, adding the Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets) to bring the total to 30 franchises. There have been fifteen drafts since the expansion, meaning there have now been enough first-round picks to fill every roster in the league.

So here’s the hypothetical premise: what if, instead of being drafted to a specific franchise, each first round pick since 2004 was instead simply assigned to a team made up of players drafted in the same draft slot? What would those teams look like, and how would they fare if they competed against one another?

Obviously, this is all a silly flight of fancy and it’s going to be pretty subjective, but even so, it’s probably a good idea to establish some ground rules:

2. The numbers listed below are career figures, and obviously the different players on each squad are at different phases of their respective careers, or retired/out of the league altogether. Therefore, when making rotation decisions, I am essentially considering the “peak” version or vintage of the player. Yes, this is unfair to rookies and other young guys, since there is almost certainly going to be a better version of them which has yet to emerge. However, we can only go on the information we have presently, and said information is inherently asymmetrical.

3. I have done my best to create positionally coherent rotations, but it is not always possible. Fit is taken into account in breaking down how competitive each team would be.

The players on each roster are listed below in order of Win Shares per 48 Minutes to create some sort of organizing principle. After that I will select my preferred rotation, provide some analysis, and then power rank each squad from 1 to 30 — including the delta between the ranking and what we would expect.

Without further ado, I give you the Draft Slot NBA, starting with our plucky underdogs at no. 30.

[Massive thanks to Basketball-Reference.com and their Draft Finder tool for making this dumb exercise possible.]

Hey, not a bad start! Considering what we would expect from the no. 30 slot, a team featuring two All-Stars (Butler and Lee) and several other very solid role players would do surprisingly well. The guard rotation would be a legitimate problem, but they could always use Slo Mo as a nominal point guard, and it’s not as though Jimmy Butler isn’t used to playing heavy minutes. A pleasantly competitive roster.

[Note: Team 30 only has 14 players because Minnesota forfeited its first round pick in 2004 due to salary cap violations. Life is unfair for the little guy. You have no idea how badly I wanted to make a “KAAAAAAAHHHNNN!!!” joke about this, but alas, David Kahn didn’t become the Wolves’ GM until 2009. Things are tough all around.]

Woof. There’s no way to polish the turd — this team would be atrocious. Outside of the triumvirate of competent guards selected by San Antonio (you’re going to see a lot of Spurs’ players in the early going, for obvious reasons), there is just nothing to work with here. Let’s move on.

OK, that’s a little better. There is at least something resembling a functional NBA roster here. Udrih was an underrated playmaker, the frountcourt would battle, and Ellington, while obviously miscast as a primary scorer, gives them someone who can shoot and put the ball in the hoop with some consistency. It would be an uphill climb, but they would stick it to Team 29, if nothing else.

Look at that frontcourt depth! Ball handling and playmaking would for sure be a struggle, but this squad has a lot of smart, rugged dudes who would make more talented teams work for it, and if all else failed, they’d still have the Stifle Tower waiting at the rim. Color me intrigued.

Team Role Player. Martin would naturally be the lead dog on offense for this star-less squad, but they would overcome their lack of size and frontline talent with tenacious, on-a-string defense and solid professionalism. They wouldn’t win a lot, but they would force the upper echelon teams to bring a real effort or potentially get embarrassed.

Team 25 would have a tough time handling size and a really tough time getting buckets consistently, so it’s hard to see them having much success. Capela/Allen/young Batum would make it a grind for opposing offenses, but this team would struggle.

Obviously this team would be WAY too guard-heavy, but the overall talent is pretty decent. Despite being far too reliant on Ibaka for rim protection and rebounding, they would be able to stay in games by turning it into a track meet and trying to outscore more talented opponents. A fun fake League Pass team.

Another super-lopsided roster. Playmaking would be a major problem with their lack of guard depth. The long, active bench unit could be kind of fun, but beyond Mirotic bombing away with impunity, it’s hard to see where consistent scoring would come from on this team.

Another team of capable role players with nothing to bring them together. Consummate pros Jack and Dudley would maximize the strengths of the group, but there just isn’t a whole lot to work with here offensively. Way too many busts on this roster, resulting in a super-young bench which would probably get worked most nights.

A strange team. They would probably have enough scoring to stay competitive, but how the pieces would fit together — and if they could get any stops — is anybody’s guess. Much like team totem Bruno Caboclo, this squad might forever be two years away from being two years away. Despite not being any good, Renaldo Balkman would end up in the rotation somehow.

I can get behind this roster. There would be athleticism up front, along with balanced scoring from behind the arc, off the bounce, and out of the pick-and-roll. The names don’t jump off the page, but the rotation would be full of competent pros, and it would probably fit together well. A sleeper to outplay their position. Javaris Crittenton is preemptively banned from their locker room.

This team would not be good, but it would be unbelievably entertaining to follow them on social media and watch the locker room gradually come apart at the seams. I mean, they legitimately go six deep with knuckleheads. These are the Wizards of Draft Slot NBA, which is appropriate, since the IRL Wizards drafted three of the dudes on this roster. Art imitating life, or something like that.

Shooting would be a real problem, but this team could be FIERCE on defense. Prime Danny Granger was a legit scorer (25.8 ppg in ’08-’09), and he would have a much better roster around him (plus verticality enthusiast Roy Hibbert; he’s still there). Holiday/Schroder is an interesting backcourt, and J-Smoove would be there to do J-Smoove things (i.e. jack crooked jumpers while doing most everything else pretty well). A little bit of sleeper potential here.

Meh. This team is way too big-man heavy and doesn’t have a ton of upside. Vooch/Rozier could be a solid PnR combination, and they would bring a level of toughness to the floor (The Bosnian Bear, Bloodsport, and Scary Terry are not nicknames bestowed upon the undeserving). Overall, the talent level just isn’t high enough to be more than an irritant, especially compared to what’s next. Also, it violates the sacred “Never have more than one Balkan guy on your roster at a time” tenet of NBA team-building.

Now we’re talking! Sure, I’m fudging the crap out of the positional designations, but whatever. The talent level here is WAY too high for their draft position — Kawhi tumbling to 15 in the 2011 Draft remains inexplicable even without the hindsight of what he’s become — and it would be a blast to watch this team play. The guard situation is obviously not good — having a catch-and-shoot type in Stuckey’s place would be ideal — but the playmaking and scoring will naturally be handled by Kawhi and Giannis anyway. Their spacing would be poor, but Professor Jefferson schooling punks in the post as a third option would be fun, and Lopez is the perfect garbageman for this roster. And did I mention they have Kawhi and Giannis?? It’s going to be a while before we get a combo close to this potent, so be warned. This team is one of our big risers.

As if to prove my point about what an outlier the previous team was, we get this motley crew of journeymen and busts. There are no true point guards you’d actually want to insert into a game on the roster (sorry not sorry to Cam Payne; he isn’t good), and if T.J. Warren and Marcus Morris are your primary scorers, you’re gonna have a bad time. Just ugly.

The “There’s Only One Ball” All-Stars. This team would shoot a metric shit-ton of threes, Ed Davis would set an NBA record for offensive rebounding rate, and Sefolosha would go insane trying to get everyone else to play a lick of defense. They would be a fake League Pass delight, and people who don’t know better would be super confused at season’s end about why they weren’t better.